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hand injury from playing

07-09-2013, 01:33 PM

well,

for the past 3 4 days i had been working on picking technique like crazy. did a lot of repetitions of alfamous spider excercise, also spider excercise starting on the first which required quite a big stech for me to keep one finger on each fret. I also did right hand picking fast on a single note.

Out of nowhere i developed a lot of pain in both my hands. they seem to be sore or injured or something. I had played for 5 6 six years before and sometimes for many hours at a time and sometimes intensely. but never had any pain etc whatsoever. although i never tried these spider excercises.

I havent played for 2 3 days. i can still feel my hands have not healed. i feel it a little when typing. and i know if i play again its gonaa start building up again. i am a little scared now. Someone have similar experience?? what can i do!! help!

Caveat: there are many things that could be wrong, so without knowing exactly what the problem is it's hard to give a definitive answer. That said...

Take more time off, first, don't make it any worse. You don't want to cause serious damage, but after just a couple days there's no reason to freak out. The general rule i've heard from PTs is that as long as it takes for the pain to go away for these types of things (tendinitis, stress injuries, etc), wait twice that long before resuming activity (i.e. if it takes 2 weeks for the pain to go away coimpletely, wait another 4 weeks before resuming activity). Again, it depends on what exactly is wrong, but taking some time off is probably not a bad idea.

In my case, my right (picking) wrist developed quite a bit of pain last year - tendinitis. I practiced every single day for 7 months, without a single day off. I should not have done that. Then I took a couple weeks off to let it "heal," but I came back too soon. After a few more months of the pain slowly creeping back I simply did not use my right hand at all for 5-6 weeks and it pretty much healed. I've been careful to force myself to take a day off here and there, and not to overdo it. I've been pretty much pain free since, even with a few multiple-hour practice sessions here and there.

Multiple award winning blues/rock/country at http://www.zeyerband.com or http://www.reverbnation.com/zeyer.Check my solo (instrumental rock) projects at: http://www.reverbnation.com/vincedickinson"Music is like the English language - it's just full of rules that need to be broken or you aren't hip.""It doesn't take talent to upgrade your playing. It takes patience" - Kenny Werner

Comment

Take more time off, first, don't make it any worse. You don't want to cause serious damage, but after just a couple days there's no reason to freak out. The general rule i've heard from PTs is that as long as it takes for the pain to go away for these types of things (tendinitis, stress injuries, etc), wait twice that long before resuming activity (i.e. if it takes 2 weeks for the pain to go away coimpletely, wait another 4 weeks before resuming activity).

The above is very sound advice. Don't f#ck around with those repetitive injuries. I have found that spider exercise to do more harm than good myself. May you heal quickly.